Video: Would You Genetically Modify Your Baby?

Do you want your baby to be disease-free? Cambrian Genomics is working on it.

Currently scientists are able to do full genome sequencing of embryos. The next step that Cambrian Genomics is studying, says CEO Austen Heinz, is to be able to make the corrections and fixes to make sure that the child doesn’t end up with the BRCA gene of breast cancer, doesn’t end up with cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease—any of the single-gene disorders.

The practice is highly controversial, and raises the ethical question of whether parents have the right to alter a child’s genes.

Despite that, synthetic DNA is an unregulated business, and in many markets it’s possible to make a genetically engineered product without a huge amount of oversight.

“We want to keep it unregulated,” CEO Heinz says. “I can’t believe that after 10 or 20 years, people will not design their children digitally.”